Hey, it’s Collin. Welcome to Engineering Echelons, a newsletter full of ideas and insights to help engineers excel at management.

Here’s what I’ve got for you this week.

• New and noteworthy news

• A management perspective to consider

• Leadership insights to delve into

• And more…

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Alright, let’s get into it.

Noteworthy Headlines

Construction materials prices slightly down in December (ENR)

Highlights:

• Construction input prices were up 2.8% year-over-year in December, but declined 0.6% from the previous month.

January Expansion Index shows steady growth in ideated construction investment (ConstructConnect)

Highlights:

• January Expansion Index was 1.13, reflecting a 13% year-over-year increase in ideated construction investment, marking six consecutive months of growth.

• Industrial, commercial, and military sectors drove the expansion; residential and medical sectors continued to contract.

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Management Perspective

When it comes to leadership, there are different levels. And the larger the organization, the more distinct each level is from the others.

Let’s take a look at what those levels are.

Level 1 - Leading Self

This first category is where employees contribute on an individual level. They complete assigned work within a given time frame and in ways that meet objectives.

When employees at this level become skilled individual contributors who produce good results and demonstrate an ability to collaborate with others, they usually receive additional responsibilities or more complex work.

When they demonstrate the ability to handle these new responsibilities, they become candidates for promotion to the next level.

Level 2 - Leading Others

When transitioning from leading oneself to leading others, reallocating time to help others perform effectively becomes a critical responsibility. These leaders can no longer devote all of their time to handling technical/production tasks themselves.

Management responsibilities grow for these leaders, and those responsibilities need to be prioritized rather than merely tolerated. Making time for others, planning for others, coaching, and the like are necessary tasks.

Level 3 - Leading Leaders

Leaders who lead other leaders are further removed from the daily technical/production tasks, meaning they need to focus even more on management tasks.

One of those tasks is identifying challenges that prevent “Level 2” leaders from prioritizing management tasks and coaching them on how to be effective leaders.

This level is also the middle point between the strategic upper echelons and the more tactical front-line levels. As such, communication (and translation) between the two is an important skill.

Level 4 - Leading a Function

This leadership level requires a further change in mindset. Up until this point, the leader has been working within a business function. Now they are working on and leading the function (operations, engineering, business development, project delivery, etc.).

This requires more strategic thinking and reliance on leaders and employees within your function to transform strategy into action.

In order to set effective strategies, function leaders need feedback from the people within the function. This requires communicating frequently with “Level 3” leaders and having skip-level conversations with others further down the chain.

Furthermore, function leaders need to communicate with and have an understanding of the other business functions. This way, the function leaders are aligned and comprehend how their function impacts others.

Level 5 - Leading a Business

The business leader has to zoom out even further and become more cross-functional. Indeed, this leadership role demands that the leader integrate the various functions, not just understand and coordinate with them.

One of the most challenging aspects of this level is balancing between future goals and current needs. The business needs to think for the long-term, but if it can’t navigate the short-term, the long-term won’t matter.

How do these leaders pilot the short-term/long-term paradox? By dedicating lots of time to thinking and reflecting.

Level 6 - Leading an Enterprise

Enterprise leaders also need to balance the short-term with the long-term, but the scales are different than that of the business leader. Enterprise leaders need visionary thinking for the next five, ten, fifteen, twenty years and beyond. The short-term is typically quarterly.

In order to switch between the two timeframes, significant amounts of time are required for thinking (long-term), and operating mechanisms (key performance indicators, objectives and key results, etc.) need to be employed for quarterly performance (short-term).

Lastly, the enterprise leader needs to be attuned to the external world. What macroeconomic factors are happening? Are there shifts in the political wind? What are clients experiencing that could impact the enterprise? The enterprise leader must see the external forces and, as the face of the organization, communicate effectively with the outside world about who the organization is, what it does, and why it’s important.

Management Insights

Mike Krzyzewski (former Duke University men’s basketball coach) on pursuing excellence:

“My hunger is not for success, it is for excellence. When you attain excellence, success naturally follows.”

—

L. David Marquet (former Navy submarine Captain) on mentorship:

“When I, as the captain, would ‘think out loud,’’ I was in essence imparting important context and experience to my subordinates. I was also modeling that lack of certainty is strength and certainty is arrogance.”

—

Brent Beshore (CEO of Permanent Equity) on the misperception of the CEO role:

“Most people think of a CEO as the person at the top. That’s true in the same way it’s true the windshield is ‘at the front’ of the car. Technically correct. Also, misses the point. The windshield isn’t the engine. It isn’t the wheels. It doesn’t move anything. But it does determine what the driver can see, what they ignore, and what they slam into at 70 miles an hour.”

Management Resource

Is all micromanagement bad? (First Round Review)

The collective wisdom surrounding management roles can be distilled into one directive: “don’t micromanage.” That’s pretty black and white. But like most things, there’s a lot of gray.

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• Let me know if you’ve found something worth sharing.

• Let me know what challenges you’re having as a manager.

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Send me an email at [email protected]

Looking forward to hearing from you. See you next time.

Collin

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